A Liar's Heart
by stellarthought
Summary: Kylo Ren is in mortal danger. His only hope is to place his trust in a mysterious stranger if he is to fulfill his destiny. But when he does, a powerful bond is created between them that could topple his whole world and change the fate of the galaxy. Facing his greatest test yet, he has to choose between his duty and his true nature. ON HIATUS FOR A MONTH DUE TO EXAMS
1. Fire

Note: I own nothing accept my OC character.

There was blood everywhere. From the corner of his eyes he could see it. It had spread out from behind his back in a pool he now lay in. It was hard to breathe and the ground was shaking. Moments from now the planet would blow up and take him with it. Would they find him? There was a tracker in his belt, but the only person who still might come for him was Hux. Of all people! It would be so embarrassing to owe his life to him that he almost wished he'd die. The Supreme Leader would not be happy about this. Not happy at all.

A hovercraft purred amidst the quakes. He tried to get up and signal them, though they couldn't be out there for any other reason than to save him. His body wouldn't obey. There was too much pain. The hovercraft's lights blinded him. Too feet peaked out of the glare and ran towards him.

"Sir, we're here to transport you." He looked up to see the white helmet of a Stormtrooper. He helped him up, and carried him to the ship. There was another Stormtrooper there but no Hux. That was lucky, he thought. At least he wouldn't have to suffer him carrying him to the ship, bandaging him, playing nurse. He winced.

"Sir, are you alright?" asked the Stormtrooper who'd carried him.

"Fine, fine."

The ship took off.

He laid back against the metal wall. He'd already left a bloody stamp on it. He looked at his gaping wound from the blow caster. The hole on his sides was as wide as a fist, and nearly pierced through his body. He took his belt off, dropped it on the side and raised his eyes to the Stormtrooper who was standing there looking at him in indecision. No one would dare to touch him.

"I need help," he said. The Stormtrooper gave a jump and ran to the first aid kit and came back with bandages and antiseptic. There was a thought that pressed on his mind but he wouldn't let it. He filled his mind with other things. The fight he had just lost. Rey. She bested him. She almost killed him. The ground split sinking split them apart but he had felt her anger. He gritted his teeth. The bile was rising inside him, his heartbeat screaming in his temples like a siren. She'd let him live! The Stormtrooper took his hands off the wound and looked at him.

"Continue!" he hissed. The man let a sharp breath out and reached for the burned flesh. Suddenly, a thousand bleeping noises came from the cockpit and they both turned their heads. The whole ship was shaking. The Stormtrooper ran to the cockpit in alarm, but he could feel the damage without being told. The plasma blast had hit their ship. They didn't get off fast enough. It took too long to find him.

The ship got slinged into the vast and empty space. It was spinning uncontrollably. The Stormtrooper who was helping him ran panic-stricken to the cockpit, where the other was just standing over the consoles, clutching his helmet with his hands. He didn't manage to do much. He pulled some levers and pressed some buttons, and soon enough he too was clutching his helmet in despair.

Too young, he thought. Too young to die. He had not lived, had not accomplished any of the things he dreamed of. Fear roared into his heart and in his mind. But it didn't last long. So strong was the shame that consumed him. He grabbed onto a handle on the metal wall and closing his eyes, he called upon his birthright: the Force. He smirqueezed his eyes shut and still heaving, let his senses free to roam, feel the burning energy around him and inside him.

As if by a miracle, the floor stopped shaking and the panels wouldn't squeak anymore. Ren looked up, streaks of cold sweat running down his face, and felt hope. Maybe he'd survive this after all. The two stormtroopers looked around for a moment and then started squealing with joy. They embraced each other while cries of relief muffled by their helmets escaped their mouths.

Ren looked at them. Even though he could hold off the imminent explosion of the shuttle, he knew he couldn't steer it through space using the Force. He wasn't strong enough for that, especially after having lost nearly half the blood in his body. He was getting more and more drowsy by the second. Even if they sent a distress signal, he didn't know if he'd make it till someone picked them up.

"Sir, SIR, we're picking up a planet!"

Ren immediately looked up.

"It can't be. There is no _sun_. What's this planet tied to?" he growled. _Idiots._

"I don't know sir but it's definitely a planet. We're saved!" the stormtrooper cried. Ren felt a tiny glimmer of false hope inflate his chest but chose to squash it. "There can't be a planet out here. We're millions of lightyears away from any solar system" he yelled.

"Sir the computer shows we're definitely approaching a planet. We've picked up speed! It's a miracle!" At that last statement Ren got so infuriated he grabbed the handle above him and gave it all to pull himself up. Limping to the command panel and the stormtroopers shied away from him. He looked at the screens. They did seem to be approaching a medium sized planet at an incredible speed.

"This vessel couldn't achieve this kind of speed even in top condition" he murmured to himself. _It can't be…_ The stormtroopers were too happy to pay attention to him. They were patting each other's back, congratulating themselves on their great luck. Ren fixed his eyes on the gigantic dark orb. With no light from anywhere there was no knowing what this planet really looked like. It was just standing alone there in the middle of the pitch black nothingness. And they where heading towards it with immense speed, which he wasn't causing. The realization hit him like a meteorite.

"We're not speeding towards it! It's coming towards us! It's a rogue planet!" he said with eyes wide open at the terrifying reveal. Even if this rock had no atmosphere to incinerate them, they'd be crushed on impact like bugs. The exploding fuel would vaporize their bodies. The stormtroopers stood frozen with terror. He glanced at them. It was all so unfair, finding death in such a pointless way.

The stormtroopers started banging the console and he moved his hands off of it. He didn't even feel like yelling at them for their weakness. Instead he slouched back into his bloody corner. His clothes where drenched in his blood and his head felt so heavy. It was hard to concentrate but he made a last, teeth-cringing effort. With his palms he touched the metal floor and tried to summon the invisible energy through it. If he was going to die he wanted to feel one with the Force. He didn't want to think of his life, of his beating heart that was about to cease forever or that look on his father's face when he killed him. That disbelief and sadness… his father's hand on his cheek.

The shuttle tore through the milky clouds while flames scorched its metal planes. From the front window the ground seemed to be coming at the with unimaginable speed, growing more and more clear by the moment. The stormtroopers where shrieking and yelling something he wasn't listening to. Ren closed his eyes and was suddenly alone in the dark, feeling his trembling fingers and roaring heart. Hundreds of times he had reached into his senses like that and tried to navigate the thousand horrifying images that roamed in his mind, but now his mind was empty. None of it mattered. That pain that tore him apart disappeared now when he was nearing his end.

Thousands of piercing bleeps emitted from the console warning them that the heat had penetrated the shuttle's shield. It would be mere seconds till the whole thing was engulfed in flames. A tremendous sound from the convulsing ship overpowered every cry from the troopers. He pushed his jaw shut to keep from making any sound. Desperately he tried to prevail upon his fear and touch the Force. The heat radiated through the floor to his sweaty palms and even through the thick fabric of his clothes.

His end would be a fiery one.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you so much to anyone who reads this story. Some trigger warnings: child harm, drug use, violence, medical procedures (needles and stuff). There will be trigger warnings that apply to specific future chapters. Those will be included at the beginning of each chapter.

A very special thanks goes to my editor **Hamliet** , author of such wonderful stories as Boarded Up and Schism. Her unending patience and kindness is what makes this story possible.


	2. Rogue Planet

Author's Note: This story is supposed to be updated every Friday at 5pm EDT. I couldn't finish in time this time. I had a particularly awful week and I thought I couldn't write at all but in the end I managed. I'm terribly sorry for that and I'll try my best to be more punctual in the future. So here it is. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I forgot to include a disclaimer in the first chapter, so I'm going to have to do it for both of them here. I do not own any of the star wars characters and story past, present or future. I only own my original character and nothing more. This story is not commercial and I make no money off of it. It's free for anyone to read.

Trigger warning: This chapter features hints of sexual assault (though not an actual description of it), thoughts of self harm, self imposed starvation and neglect of personal care. Also, anyone who read the previous chapter knows there is going to be a crash, so if that is disturbing for you, best avoid this chapter.

A man chased her down the corridor. He was hunched and greasy and wore clothes that must have been rotting on his flesh for a million days. Amy ran through the flapping blue curtains halfheartedly trying not to slip on the white marble floor, which decades of hurried footsteps had turned into a polished death trap. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest and every inch of her skin burned with temptation. The man was gaining ground on her. She frantically looked around the abandoned rooms filled with state of the art batch chambers and hover-beds. None of them were _right._

The moment she made that thought she found herself in a peculiar little room, different from all the others. It was not comfortable and it didn't have any fancy equipment in it. Just a pain white bed and no windows. Amy felt paralyzed. Her feet wouldn't move anymore, her mind already conjuring up images of what would come next. His dirty, hairy palms would soon be on her. This was so wrong, and yet she couldn't help but invite them in. A vile, nauseating thrill enthralled her and she stopped running. It was so close now. It would happen soon… so very soon…

Every vessel in her body constricted. Waking up from these dreams felt like jumping off a cliff. She closed her eyes and tried to get back into it. Sometimes, if she was lucky, her brain picked up right where it had left off, but that wasn't going to happen tonight. All the new flicker of sleep managed to do was jolt her back into reality a couple moments later. With her blood still raging in her temples she sat up on her stony bed.

The cave that sheltered her looked gloomier than ever that night. The fluorescent glow of the solitary lantern hung from a rusty nail she'd banged into the rocky wall made her dizzy. She looked around and felt dead. The scull-tearing agony she'd felt when she first left her home-planet had now worn down into a constant, inescapable, dull ache that permeated her entire existence. It was as if the atmosphere was crashing her all the time. Every move, every breath, every thought hurt. But it was time to drag herself out of bed now. Her clothes needed washing, the ashes needed to be thrown out and she had to do something for food. It'd been days since she'd bothered to find food or change her clothes.

She grabbed the lantern and went out. The cold night air hit her face like a thousand tiny razors. Outside her cave a wide plane separated her from an intimidating evergreen forest. A pale white blanket of snow fell over her entire field of vision. Amy looked around: no birds, no wildlife, no sounds. The encompassing frozen vastness was utterly empty. It drove her crazy some days. A place like this made one painfully aware of how profoundly unimportant one is. She could scream her thoughts at the top of her lungs and the stale, icy scenery would remain unmoved by her plights. She'd long stopped doing that. It was better to just sleep for days on end. In her imagination at least unanswerable questions had answers.

With her stare fixed at her feet she made for the dark forest and disappeared behind the ancient trees.

In the safety of the evergreen trees, Amy couldn't see the blindingly bright object that was falling from the sky.

The blazing shuttle hit the snowy ground with the force of a supernova explosion. The ground shook tremendously. She looked around alarmed. Something was making a deafening whooshing sound. It sounded as if it was approaching from far above with an incredible speed. From the tiny gaps between the pine needles she could see a soft glow penetrating the shadowy forest. _A meteorite!_ she thought _._ For a moment there her lips twitched into a small smile. Her pulse strangely slowed. She would surely die. _If only I could look at it before… never seen a meteorite up close…_ But she had no time left. All would be over in less than a second. She kneeled down next to a tree, with her fingers shielding her ears from the crashing sound, and she softly leaned her head against the tree trunk. _Like falling asleep…_

Metal shards and melted components were catapulted hundreds of miles across the snowy plane. A gigantic mushroom of fire soared into he atmosphere followed by a menacing cloud of pitch black smoke.

Amy slowly rose to her feet and took her fingers off her ears. She wasn't met with scorched earth. Nothing looked different. Nothing except a couple of blackened pieces of metal that had only narrowly missed her. She dashed towards the edge of the forest.

Why wasn't she dead?

What was that thing that fell?

A meteorite with a size big enough to produce such a loud noise would have wiped out everything within a 50 mile radius. This had to be something else. When the vegetation started to thin out, she slowed down. Whatever that thing was had to be approached with great care.

Amy hid behind a rotund tree trunk. The smell of burned metal was insufferable and it made her very dizzy. She pinched her nose and dared to steal a look at the crash.

It appeared to be a small ship. Something like a shuttle. It had crashed about twenty yards away from the forest. _Whoever was driving it was definitely a corpse now._ Her curiosity was threatening to get the better of her but she didn't budge from her hiding place. _This could be dangerous_ said a wild voice in her head. _Maybe more explosions are about to happen._ Her stomach growled. She never made that hunting trip. But she couldn't take her eyes off the wreckage. The sight of death and destruction that lay before her was much more interesting than setting up traps for unfortunate animals. Immediately she chastised herself. _Death isn't entertaining._

Many moments passed. The crash too was fading into the dead scenery and soon would pass into oblivion. Suddenly something black blinked into her vision. Amy squinted her eyes to see. It looked like a dark shadow was clawing its way out of the crash like a spider struggling in the water. The sight of it terrified her. Someone had survived that crash! It was impossible by any rate. Someone was on this planet with her. The first person she'd seen in years. She felt like she'd just chewed on something bitter. Her insides kicked. Why did that have to happen now? She wanted no one. No one was welcome!

The dark figure limped away from the crash and stood hunched over apparently looking at the mangled shuttle. For a very long moment it remained there motionless. Then it looked around. Amy was furious. It would soon spot her cave and head for it. _And then I'll have to try and fix him. Here in the middle of nowhere!_ The plans started to form in her head before she could even take notice. Plans about finding the right substances, the right tools. Plans about sterilizing her only blade and finding firewood. The deep and savage instinct that propelled her to make all these thoughts worked with stealth and efficiency in her mind, outsmarting all the cautious thoughts she fought to make about keeping distance and keeping her knife firmly in hand.

Soon enough the dark shape was heading for the cave. Amy rolled her eyes. When it disappeared behind the entrance she stepped out of her hideaway. Slowly she walked towards the wreckage leaving deep footprints in the snow. After a careful look she spotted fragments of white armor and about a yard away a dismembered arm clad in white arm harness. _It was a First Order ship._ Bile rose in her throat. That black figure was a First Order officer.

A fierce battle started raging inside her brain:

What am I going to do?

 _You took an oath!_

But this person's First Order -

 _You don't get to discriminate._

He'll could be dangerous…

 _You've lost the right to care for that._

Mist appeared in her eyes despite the howling wind. Her feet dragged her back to the pensive gloom of the place she called home. Upon reaching the rocky entrance she leaned on the side with her back on the stone wall and took a few breaths.

And she went to meet her fate.


	3. A Young Face

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the star wars characters and story past, present or future. I only own my original character and nothing more. This story is not commercial and I make no money off of it. It's free for anyone to read.

Author's Note: I've been trying to upload the document for hours. I had to actually download and install openoffice cause nothing else would work. I apologize for the delay. A big thank you to my editor, **Hamliet,** who's been spending hours upon hours discussing my stories with me without complaint. I can't recommend her stories enough.

* * *

Kylo Ren could not remember what had happened. A terrible stench of acrid smoke assaulted his nostrils and thrust him in the middle of consciousness. When he finally came around he knew he had been active long before the veil of oblivion was lifted from his mind. He opened his eyes and was faced with an all-encompassing dome of stars. They were cold and distant and beautiful. Life surged to every nook and cranny of his body and with that came pain. Even the Force felt weak in his fingers. Only then did he realize that every tendon, muscle and bone in his body were trembling. Panting and cringing his teeth, he made an effort to pull himself up but his weight wouldn't budge.

At first he didn't understand why he was alive. That crash should have incinerated him. _Maybe…_ he mused, _maybe the Force…_ He turned his head from side to side and squinted his eyes to make out his surroundings through the darkness. The scenery gave off a faint dark blue glow. _Snow_ , he realized. It was then that he understood why he was shaking so badly. The air was so cold it made his insides hurt. He knew if he stayed there any longer he'd die.

With a titanic effort he pulled himself up. The faulty support his legs gave him threatened to bring him down any moment and he had to grope the remnants of the shuttle to get a grip. He felt like a wounded spider. _This is pathetic,_ he thought. The eery darkness that surrounded him wouldn't even let him look at his wounds. He could feel them all too well though. His pulse ran through the gashing hole on his side, the burned skin on his face and his tortured lungs and stabbed him pain.

Once he managed to stand upright he took a hard look around.

Not a soul on sight.

The Stormtroopers must definitely be dead. An image of them cheering when they first saw this planet flashed through his mind. _Another casualty of the war._ He shook his head. He knew that the only way he was still alive was the Force. He remembered a story Snoke had told him about his grandfather during his training. A cave had collapsed on top of him but Vader survived because in his unconscious state the Force had enveloped him and kept him safe. Pride swelled inside his chest. It was a relief to know that he had it in him to do that. But his moment of pride was marred by another image. An image of a bridge drowned in red fumes. _I had that in me as well…_

He couldn't make much out apart from the wreckage. If there was anything but endless fields of snow around him it was too far to see in this darkness. So he closed his eyes and let the Force guide him. A sixth sense of direction pulled him towards a big round shadowy shape. He felt it was about 40 yards away from him. A rather short distance if he was in top condition but tonight it felt like an eternity away. He would never make it like without supporting his weight with something. He cringed his teeth again and pulled out a long metal lever that was stuck in the burned ground near him. A walking stick. _This is disgusting_ he thought.

When he finally reached his destination he realized it was an enormous cave. He could not feel any signs of life in there so he went in. It was even darker than outside and he was afraid he'd slip on the rocky floor and break something. He didn't want to risk going any further inside so he let himself slip down the side of the rocky wall and onto the ground. He put his palms down and touched it. It was dry! He let out a muffled sigh of relief. His body was like a ton of bricks. Gravity pulled it down and he passed out immediately.

* * *

The lime-green light of Amy's lantern lit up the cave. Next to the entrance, fallen on the floor, was the unconscious figure of a man clad in black… _robes?_ His clothes looked truly ridiculous to her. _Long black robes, black leather gloves, black leather boots…_ He looked like none of the First Order operatives she'd seen before. It was obvious he was some kind of big deal but his attire was so odd. Both him and his clothes were in a pitiful state though. He was frozen, wet and the smoke from the crash had left a back crust all over his body. _Man, he looks like burned pot roast._ She kneeled next to him and put two fingers on his carotid artery. There was a pulse. It was faint but it was there. His face was obscured by long dirty locks of dark hair.

Holding her lantern over him she took a hard look at his body. There was blood dripping from a huge hole some five inches below his rib-cage. This was no impact trauma. It was a blaster wound. _He's just come from a battle_ she thought. Immediately her breath caught in her throat. This man, whoever he was, had just killed people. Every inch of her recoiled from him.

What to do? Kill a man? Save a killer? Her conscience screamed out of tune in her ears: … _don't you want to repent? remember the last time… remember what you did…_

But she couldn't let the heaviness inside her lure her into a decision.

 _Think logically!_ she bowled at herself.

 _If he does live, he could wake up and kill you…_ said a little cold voice in her head.

 _I can take him,_ she replied.

 _There should be no place in this world for people like that,_ her mind egged on.

But an otherworldly curiosity overwhelmed her and her hand reached for the muddy locks of hair obscuring his face. A pallid face emerged from beneath them. A face not belonging to a soldier, or an officer, or a killer. A young face, slashed horrifically in half. A long, sweaty line appeared on her forehead as she frowned deeply. Her breath came in shallow. She put her palm on his forehead. He was burning up.

Without even realizing she started to shake him.

"Wake up!"

Nothing.

"WAKE UP!"

His eyelids fluttered. She saw the long, thick eyelashes trembling.

A pair of piercing black eyes shot at her. Something invisible got inside her and started tormenting her with an image of deep black irises.

She was haunted.

* * *

* The Vader scene mentioned is from an old comic book story I read. Unfortunately I don't have the actual book anymore so I can't give you the title. I'll try to find it though.


	4. Amy Win-Dell

Author's Note: Guys I really tried to keep Friday as the release date. It can't be done. University and work together don't leave time for anything else. So from now on I'll update on Sundays at 5pm EDT. I'm terribly sorry for the delay this week. Hopefully having the weekend open will allow me more time to write.

 **Trigger Warning** : There's mentioning of a very scary and dangerous situation that can happen during surgery, which is the anesthesia wearing off. There's also some description of what a doctor does during an actual surgery.

* * *

 _wake up…_

 _WAKE UP…_

An impatient voice pierced through his ears. Fighting through his dizziness he opened his eyes to see a blurry figure right above him. People lived on this frozen rock! But his hope was short-lived. Untold millions of creatures in this galaxy hated him. His name was associated far and wide with death and he was in no condition to fight or bargain for his life.

"Wake up!" she yelled. She? It was a woman? He tried to focus on her face. Slowly it came together. He saw a pair of beautiful, deep, brown eyes sitting above the most expressive cheekbones he'd seen in his life and round little mouth. She was looking at him with a stern expression which made her dimpled jaw seem even more impressive than it was. It was such a shame really what he'd have to do in the end…

"Give me your hands, I'll lift you up" she said.

With a strength he wouldn't have guessed she had, she pulled him up. She was so much shorter than him that he could look at the top of her scalp. She had very long, thick, dark brown hair that flowed in loose waves down her shoulders.

"Were am I?" he croaked.

"Nowhere"

She put his left arm over her shoulders and her right hand around his waist. She guided him to a pile of animal furs on top of a flat square surface protruding from walls in the far end of the cave. She said nothing the whole time. That silence was no good to him. Most people blabbered about their thoughts and feelings and it was child's play to know their intentions. He'd have to use the Force on her even though his strength had abandoned him.

Little glimmers of her thoughts passed through his mind.

"… the child… what had he said?… he'd never seen meat in his life…"

 _Gibberish_. He looked at her again. As she laid him down on her bed he realized there were huge purple shadows under her eyes and she was far too skinny. She didn't look like she was _all there_ so to speak.

"Did someone harpoon you there lad?" she said disrupting his thoughts. A remarkable change had taken place in her. Her eyes were suddenly focused on his with the intensity of a laser beam.

"Blow-caster" he whispered.

"So… why is a First Order soldier looking for shelter in a cave on a planet nobody has visited in centuries?"

Ren felt his heart sink. He could feel she wasn't lying. This was indeed an abandoned planet. She was his only hope. And a minuscule one at that since he had felt her distaste at the mention of the First Order. If he didn't muster the strength to do the mind trick he could very well end up being her dinner.

"You will clean my injuries and help me in any way you can" he murmured reaching out to her mind through the Force.

"Will I?" she answered, her tongue dripping with irony.

"You will clean my injuries and help me in any way you can" he pressed again, trying so hard his teeth ground together. The effort was straining him to the breaking point. This was such a disappointment! He couldn't use the Force and it made him feel like an invalid. Suddenly he was very aware of the cauterized scar across his face.

"What's your name kid?"

Ren almost looked around to see who she was calling _kid._ He had to lie. Some unknown impulse from deep inside made him blurt out "Ben".

"Well then, Ben, from the location of that giant gaping hole I'd say you need some major patchwork and a blood transfusion or you're gonna die within the hour. Unfortunately, while qualified, I'm not equipped to perform traditional surgery right now so we're gonna have to improvise."

"Qualified…? You're a doctor?" Ren asked as if he hadn't heard everything else she'd said.

"Surgeon" she answered. She was already on her feet looking to the entrance of the cave deep in thought as if trying to calculate some obscure equation.

"If you manage to keep me alive I can get you out of here."

Amy turned to look at him. She had a look of utter contempt on her face.

"Sure you will."

"No, I will. I give you my word." he pressed, feeling increasingly desperate because the little strength he had left seemed to have vanished. He made to stand up, and his legs trembled so much he fell back. Amy dashed to hold him up.

"No sudden movements. You'll bleed dry even faster."

A cold sweat ran down his spine, one that wasn't caused by his massive blood-loss. The word _please_ itched on his tongue but he didn't want to utter it. It would hurt more than all his injuries put together. She looked at him and he had the odd feeling that she could see into his mind. A second before he sunk lower than he ever had before she spoke.

"Take off your clothes."

"Excuse me?"

Amy pressed her lips together truly annoyed.

"You need bandages."

Before he could stop himself he closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh of relief. _She might help me after all_. Upon realizing how foolishly he had revealed his thoughts, he gave her a nasty look. If she picked up on it at all, she didn't let on.

He fumbled with his belt for a few moments until she humphed and reached for the clasp. One by one she helped him take off all his clothes accept his trousers.

"You can keep that" she said with a sardonic smile. Then she put one hand on his bare shoulder and the other on his arm and gently laid him back down on the fur covers. The sensation of it caught him by surprise. Nobody had touched his bare skin in seven years. Nobody except… He shook his head. He didn't want to remember _that_.

"What are you shaking your head for?"

"Nothing"

"Alright then, follow my finger" and she held up her index in front of him. Ren rolled his eyes.

"What kind of idiocy is this?"

She seemed utterly unconcerned about his insults. Her finger moved left to right in front of him and he followed it with his eyes. She seemed satisfied with the results.

"It's a method of determining if a patient has a concussion. It was used centuries ago, before the mobile scanners where invented. I can't put you under if you've got a concussion."

Suddenly he realized where this was heading and he didn't like it one bit.

"Put me under? What for?" he asked.

"Well, normally an injury like this is treated with local anesthesia and a dip into a bacta chamber, but seeing as we've got neither, I'm gonna have to do surgery the old fashioned way. I'll find something to knock you out cold, hopefully for the entirety of the procedure."

"You mean I could wake up in the middle of…"

Amy hesitated. She gave him a look that he bitterly recognized as pity. Fury roared inside him but before he could spit out his insults she moved an inch closer and said:

"I'm afraid that's a possibility."

"Can't you give me a big enough dose so that won't happen?" he demanded.

"I can but if I do that you won't wake up at all." she said seriously. He involuntary took in a long shuddering breath. _Look at me, I'm afraid!_ he thought and the shame of it consumed him. And then he remembered his training which he was failing miserably.

"I understand how terrifying this sounds…"

"I AM NOT AFRAID!" he yelled before he could stop himself. Amy raised two eyebrows incredulously. Then her face became gravely again.

"I understand how the prospect might seem unattractive to you, as it would anyone." she rephrased.

"Do whatever you have to do, I can handle pain. This" and he pointed to the gaping would on his sides "isn't exactly a scratch."

"As excruciating as this pain may be, if you wake up while i'm reattaching arteries to valves, you're gonna be in a pain that is beyond your comprehension." she said, still giving him that penetrating stare that went right inside his soul. Why was she saying all that to him? What did she want him to do?

"I'm telling you this because I need you to try and stay motionless if you do in fact wake up." Ren was startled. _How did she know what I was thinking…?_ And then he thought of what she'd just said. He really didn't know if he could do that. The pain he was in was already threatening to break him. Where would he find the strength to withstand the kind of torture she described. _Nobody's here… not Snoke… not…_ he stopped himself before he could name another name.

"Try to stay calm. You're not going to be alone if it happens. That's what doctors are for."

He looked at her wide-eyed and recoiled from her. Amy smiled a thin smile looking at the ground. Ren wanted to say something but he couldn't find anything. He decided to remain silent.

Amy walked over to the other side of the cave and opened what appeared to be a makeshift trunk. She pulled out a long black cloak and looked at it for a moment. And then started tearing it into long strips. She went back to Ren, pulled him into a sitting position and started wrapping the strips tightly around his waist. He winced.

"Why did you tear up your own clothes?" he asked her.

Amy didn't respond. She kept wrapping the strips around him with that professional efficiency of someone who's done it a million times on a million people.

"What's your name?" he pressed on frustrated.

"Amy. Amy Win-Dell"


	5. Blood Types

The world was dark. There was no sun to light the way and no moon pierce the darkness. It was so cold that her breath came out as thick, white cloud. She'd begun to feel desperate. That boy needed warmth. He wouldn't make it through the surgery without fire. _But how to find my way without light?_ Her only lantern she'd left with him. She rubbed her arms and then put her hands under her armpits. She was so cold her entire body trembled. Still, she kept going.

The air inside the forest was horribly humid. The dump atmosphere made the cold sink into her bones. Amy took a few dozen steps into the forest and then halted. She closed her eyes and worked hard to steady her shaky breaths. Many moments passed. She stood there motionless like a statue. When the distant cry of a bird echoed through the night she'd found what she was looking for. She stormed after the bird, following its cry.

There was so little light in the forest that she might as well have kept her eyes shut. She'd made this run a million times in the past eight years. As she kept running with her hands awkwardly extended before her, she prayed her sense of direction would not fail her now.

At last she stopped, panting, in front of a humongous rocky hill that stood taller than the lofty canopy of tree branches. She humphed. Her right foot sneaked between the creases that formed at the bottom of the huge rock, searching for secure footing, before she started climbing up the nearly vertical hillside. All the while her heart was pounding. All it would take was one misstep and she'd plummet to her death. _And that kid will be left to die of blood-loss,_ she thought.

Once she reached a dusty plateau she pulled herself over with the last ounce of her strength and collapsed on the floor. Her lungs were on fire! Quickly she forced herself to stand and took a long look at the cave she was standing in, trying to peer through the darkness. Anything could be in there, from bears, to bats, to snakes. _Don't think, just go,_ she ordered herself.

She got down on her knees and groped. Soon enough she found what she'd been looking for: an endless heap of dried off branches. She hesitated. _I hate insects!_ Her hands were trembling. Amy pressed her lips, furious with herself.

"This behavior is unacceptable! _Calm down! Calm down!_ " she hissed.

An image of a heavily lit, sterilized bed flashed before her eyes. A sensation she thought she'd long forgotten came over her, a feeling of necessity, of being compelled to answer a call of duty. Her hands no longer trembled. Her lips curved into a smile. It felt so foreign on her face, after all these years.

Amy gathered two huge stacks of dried branches and tied them with the straps she'd made in the cave out of her mangled clothes.

 _A Force-sensitive, working for the First Order… this world's coming to an end._ She spat bitterly on the ground. On her way back, she kneeled down next to a tree trunk and uprooted some weed that grew on the forest floor. With a disgusted face she put it in her mouth and chewed it all the way back to the cave.

Ren's mind was preoccupied with his belt. His belt, along with most of his clothes lay in a pile on the floor next to his "bed". That crazy woman had wrapped him up in her furry trousseau. He had to reach his belt. In it was hidden a tiny deep-space transmitter. If he could activate it, if Hux had reached Snoke, as he suspected he had, then Snoke would make him rescue him. _No doubt about it,_ he told himself. After all, he had completed the task Snape put him up to. His father was dead…

With immense effort, he stretched out his hand and let the Force flow through him. Only a weak current came through. The belt lay indifferent to his calls.

Every second felt like an hour. She took too long to come back. By now she could be anywhere. She could have left him there to die. _Her voice though… she sounded so sincere,_ he thought. He'd only ever known one other person who spoke with such a palpable sincerity. _Han Solo…_ His eyes filled with tears.

Amy stumbled into the cave and Ren rushed to wipe his face before she got closer. She dropped two huge racks of wood on the ground and gave him a piercing look. After she was satisfied with what she saw, she took her lantern off the wall of the cave and started rampaging through her trunk for what turned out to be an ornate, silver hand-mirror. He watched her curiously.

She dropped some of the fire wood on the floor close to him and held the lantern about six inches over it. Then she used the mirror to focus the plasma-fuelled light of her lantern into a single, dense ray that lit the wood ablaze. His eyebrows shot up. _Ingenious…_

"Are you feeling all right?" she asked with an artistically soft voice.

"Never better" he replied bitterly.

She chortled. As she touched his forehead once more, he felt it again: that weird sensation that filled him when her hands were on him. He felt somehow even more naked than he was. _It's as if the Force trembles_.

"You're gonna warm up soon" she said. The small flame she'd made had grown into a beautiful fire.

"Thank you"

She disappeared into a crack in the cave wall that was so deeply shrouded in the shadows he had not noticed it before. She came back with a large pot that she proceeded to fill with snow from outside. She arranged four large rocks around the fire and placed the pot on top of them.

"What are you doing?" he asked in an attempt to strike up a conversation.

"Boiling water"

"Why?"

"I got no alcohol" she said.

He didn't want to imagine what new horrors she intended to inflict on him in order to perform some primitive kind of medicine. He did consider himself blessed though. Not only had he survived Hux's scheme, he'd crashed next to the only person who could keep him alive long enough to call for help. The Force hadn't abandoned him after all. He didn't want to send the signal in front of her though. He'd gotten the feeling she didn't relish the idea of the First Order coming there.

Amy pulled the furs off of him and he shivered. She gave him a piece of her torn cloak to hold and said "Put it in your mouth in a minute".

When steam started coming out of the boiling pot, Amy dipped her hands in and held them there. Ren was shocked. As she took them out, her whole face was beetroot red and her eyes glistening. She dipped a few more of the tatters from her cloak in and gently pressed them on his wound. The pain of it was bone-crushing. The water scalded his skin. He bit into the fabric so hard he felt his teeth push into his skull and let out a muffled scream.

"It's over!" she said in a calming voice. He looked down at his would and saw it was now clean and looking less severe. She started cleaning the rest of his chest and wounds. This contact was strangely intimate, which made him feel ill-at-ease. It wasn't like the last time he was so close to a woman's face. It was him lying unable to move now.

The other cuts didn't hurt nearly as bad as the blow-caster wound. Amy patted the sweat off his forehead and he got a chance to look straight into her eyes. She was even paler than before and her lips were a faint bluish color.

"Thank you" he murmured again. Once more she said nothing. "What now?"

"Now, I have to tie something around your elbow to make the veins pop out"

"Alright…" he begun saying, "Wait! Isn't it supposed to be dangerous to make a transfusion if you don't know that the donor's blood type matches the recipient? I think I read that in a book somewhere…"

Amy's head jerked slightly when he mentioned the word _book._

"No, it's supposed to be lethal" she answered simply.

Ren was stricken.

"What blood-type are you then?" he asked, his voice a little louder than he would have liked.

Amy sniggered.

"AB positive. What's yours?"

"You're just asking me that now?" he shouted.

"Yes"

"Why didn't you ask me earlier? What if our blood-types don't match?"

"I take it you don't know what your blood type is then." she said, her face inscrutable.

A vain was popping on Ren's head.

"I never needed to know that. Nobody's had a damn transfusion in centuries."

She stood up again and he couldn't stop himself yelling "Why _didn't_ you ask for my blood-type earlier?"

Before she disappeared into the crack in the wall again she said: "Because it didn't matter. AB positive is only three percent of the population and we can only donate to another AB positive."

Ren was left staring at empty space.

* * *

Author's Note: I tried to research the medical aspects of this chapter as best as I could with the limited time I've got. If I got something wrong I'd love to hear about it and I apologize in advance. Enjoy!


	6. The Good Doctor

Trigger Warning: Lot's of blood in this chapter, if that makes you squeamish best avoid it. Also primitive, terrifying medical procedures.

Disclaimer: I own nothing other than my OC.

* * *

The feeling of impending doom came slowly this time. It was nothing new. A familiar heaviness rested against his naked chest and his eyes drifted to the ceiling which was almost obscured in the faint light that came from the crack in the wall. The doctor was working in there. Clanks and thuds echoed in the cold sedimentary walls of the cave. With enormous effort he raised his hand and touched his own cheek. The warmth of his blood had left him. There was only cold sweat on his skin and nothing to keep him warm but the hope that her outrageous gamble would pan off. His situation was hopeless. And still his pulse was defiantly slow.

The fluorescent light grew stronger and recalled him from his reverie. She'd come back, carrying what looked like a long plastic tube and a syringe. He inspected her. Her shabby attire hung from her frail figure like tasteless curtains that hadn't been washed in over a decade. The only thing about her that looked robust was her long chestnut hair, that fell like a shiny waterfall on her face obscuring it. She seemed to be looking at the tools in her hands, standing so still she could pass for a rather pleasant scarecrow. He had a pretty good idea about what she was planning on doing with those and couldn't help but wonder if she'd even make it five minutes into the transfusion. She looked like she needed one herself.

All of a sudden she jumped out of her immobility and with a springy step she ran out of the cave, grabbing along the huge pot that'd been left beside him. When she came back it was filled to the brim with fresh snow and she threw more branches to the fire before letting the snow boil. She turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder. Her piercing stare collided with his and, though he couldn't read her thoughts, he felt like they were silently coming to a mutual understanding about what was to come. Like two people who knew they were going to face death together and were trying to give each other comfort. And then he remembered nothing would happen to her if he did bite the dust yet she was still giving him _that look_. _Occupational hazard,_ he thought.

The doctor dropped the tube, the syringe and an ancient-looking pocket knife in the pot and came to sit by him.

"Have you eaten recently?" he asked.

Amy let out a breathy snort and said "I've had coffee recently."

His eyes widened. _I_ am _doomed. At least if she holds out until I get some blood in my veins again…_ he thought with ruthless desperation. And then he winched at his own thought. Amy immediately became alert.

"Are you feeling pain?"

"No, no… not enough blood in me to feel pain anyway." he said.

"Funny thing a soul is. Doesn't need fuel to torment us."

His eyebrows furrowed in. How uncomfortable it was to be read like an open book. When Rey had broken into his mind… how excruciatingly humiliating that was! And yet this violation of his privacy felt different, somehow oddly familiar. He remembered another set of piercing brown eyes on him, wrapping him in blankets…

Without saying another word she stood up and went to retrieve her boiling equipment. He watched again as she dipped her hands in the scalding water, turned beetroot red and did not make so much as a yelp. Her hands were trembling as she carried the equipment back to him and only then did he notice the skin on her hands had developed blisters. He pressed the sides of his lips together and sighed. Amy didn't seem to notice.

She took the syringe and broke the needle. Ren watched stunned as she savagely pulled a thick lock of her hair out and used it to tie the needle to the end of the plastic tube. Her eyes turned tomato-red and tears leaked from their corners. How she kept her blistered hands from trembling was a mystery to him. _Where does this power come from?_ he wondered. _I thought only the Dark Side…_ but he'd been wrong about that before.

Amy had closed her eyes and was panting. She did that for a couple of moments and then, as abruptly as always, her eyes shot open and she focused on the job. She flicked the pocked knife open and stabbed the inside of her elbow. At this Ren's brows nearly touched his hair. Amy took the other end of the tube and stuck it in the hole she'd made in her flesh. Thick, wine-red blood started flowing through the tube. Quickly she scooped some of the boiled water with her other palm and poured it on his own crook of the elbow and rubbed his skin with her raw fingers.

"Uhm… I hope you're not afraid of needles." she said. He shot her a frustrated look during which she sunk the needle in his vein unnoticed. He didn't feel a thing. He almost wanted to smile at her.

Amy stood on her feet for a long time and they both remained silent. Her heart kept pumping her blood into his veins while she kept still like a statue. He couldn't keep his eyes off her. Her blood slowly sneaked inside him, sent a sweet warmth all over his mangled body while she turned whiter and whiter. He swallowed and found himself wishing he could stand up and hold her, make sure she wouldn't faint. She didn't seem to need it though. She was observing him like a hawk and he had the feeling that even though her blood flowed away from brain she remained laser-focused at him.

"Maybe you should keep some for yourself." he suggested, "After all, you do need to 'patch me up' later."

"I guess you wouldn't know without a mirror, but your eyes had started turning yellow. That means your liver's shutting down from the blood-loss."

"But how are you gonna be able to pull through?" he asked, and cursed inwardly that the worry had made it into his voice.

"Coffee." she said with a slaphappy smile.

He felt his blood - _her blood -_ boil in his head. _Coffee? Are you freaking kidding me?_

"How are you even able to stand on your feet?"

"Mind over matter… _Ben_ was it?" she said.

It stung to her that name from her lips. It stung even worse to hear her quote things Snoke used to say. Things others long before him had said.

"Ben." he confirmed.

"Well, Ben, why don't you lay back and try to relax? This isn't even the hard part. Which reminds me, do you have any next of kin you want to contact?"

Her question caught him off guard.

"No." he said emphatically.

"Are you sure? Isn't there anyone out there wondering where you are? If you're alive?"

"That's not your concern." he said stiffly. All the warmth her blood had given him had now evaporated.

"Very well." she stated with a cryptic smile. She took the tube and the needle off their arms and wrapped her elbow with one of the cloth stripes. He was still scowling at her when she cleaned his pierced elbow with more water.

"Brace yourself." she said and disappeared again in the crack in the wall.

When she came back she was holding another piece of clothing drenched in a fowl smelling liquid. He did not like where this was going at all.

"What _is_ that?"

"Chloroform."

His eyes shot wide open. It only now hit him that this woman was going to muffle him with a blackout-inducing drug like some pervert kidnapping a minor.

"Try to relax. I'll do it slowly and you can talk to me all the way through till you fall asleep." she said and for once she had a kinder tone to her voice.

She kneeled next to him and she brought the cloth to his nose slowly, like she promised. It affected him at once. His eyes felt heavier, his head dizzy. After he'd taken a few huffs she pulled the cloth away an inch.

"Are you feeling alright?"

His voice trembled. In his half-drugged state he had neither the strength nor the will to fight the images in his head.

"Stay with me" he whispered.

"I'm here." she said firmly. "I'll always be here."

"Huh… _the good doctor…_ " was all he managed to say before she pressed the cloth to his nose again and everything went black.

* * *

Author's Note: Guys I'm terribly sorry I didn't update last week. Basically, I wanted to get into a different school than the one I did and this new one includes advanced biology courses, about which I have zero prior knowledge and for which I have to study without a textbook and without the slides our teachers use during class because neither will be available to the students until a month from now. It's my own personal hell. I couldn't bring myself to write at all last week.

Also, I know there is a plot hole here where Amy didn't tie something around his arm to make his vein pop out. I'd already written the whole thing when I noticed my mistake and then I couldn't find a place to slip it in where it wouldn't disrupt the flow of the narrative. I apologize for this. I'm also aware that using chloroform for anesthesia would probably kill a patient rather than knock them out but my medical knowledge doesn't extend further than that and also I'm describing a very primitive setting here.

Thank you all for reading and reviewing. Your words mean the world to me and I'm not just saying that. Waiting for the email alert for a new review during cell anatomy class on Mondays is the only thing that gets me through it. You're all wonderful people. :D

Last but not least, a big, thundering THANK YOU to my editor **Hamliet** who puts up with my endless rambling and has the intelligence and character to provide constructive criticism. Seriously check her reylo stories out, they're the best.


	7. Confession

The boy was out cold. His sweaty black locks fell tired on his pale face. His breath was deep and slow like that of a sleeping baby. _This is no sleeping baby, Amy_ , she chided herself. _This is the enforcer of tyranny._

 _He's somebody's child..._ a voice whispered to her. She remembered his face when she asked him about his next of kin. _That look was pain,_ she thought. She'd seen it in countless faces. The patients could be divided in two categories: those whose pain oozed out of their faces like blood from a deep cut and those who bit their tongue hard enough to break the skin and swallowed it. He was the latter. She couldn't help herself admiring that, even though he was a soldier and it was to be expected of him. From the few soldiers she'd known in her life, she had realized they were rarely as brave as they were required to be. But this one was... more than a soldier. _He's a fighter,_ she thought.

Something deep inside troubled her. She had dipped her hands in scalding water, she had stabbed her elbow, she had given her blood.. and while she had thought her decision was made and set and her mind wouldn't waver, now the doubts were nagging her again. _Are you really doing this out of some noble principle? You and your noble principles, your lofty ideals... that always seem to play hide and seek when it really matters..._

She was now in such a state of unrest that she'd stood up and begun pacing up and down next to his sleeping form.

"What in the name of hell were you thinking telling him you'd " _always_ " be there? WHO DID YOU IMAGINE YOU WERE TALKING TO?" she yelled at herself. At that a wave of boundless misery washed over her face. Her head hung from her shoulders like a soon-to-be-executed inmate. She headed back to him, knelt down and sat there for what felt like eternity.

How many deaths would burden her conscience if she saved this life? After all this was _the boy who fell into the trap_. Snoke's trap. And whomever his parents were they'd failed to protect him. She couldn't blame them though. Once Snoke had set his mind on a target it was as good as his... _or dead._

She looked at him. His sight was excruciatingly painful to her. More so than the scalding water and the cuts and the exhaustion. The fate of the world now burdened her shoulders and she recalled how she sat in exactly the same position years ago, hoping that same responsibility would befall someone else.

Something suddenly changed inside her and she looked at Ren with a steely-eyed resolve. She started performing the surgery immediately. Her heart was now beating furiously in her chest. _I've lost precious time,_ she kept telling herself over and over.

* * *

Ren felt a cold like nothing he'd experienced before. He couldn't move his hands, or his lips and his mouth was so dry his tongue was chafing his palate. His eyelids were heavy like they were made of of lead.

" _...kid...wake up...it went well..."_ He heard that voice coming as if from afar. It felt familiar but he could not remember who it was. Nor did he know where he was or why he was in so much pain. Everything was a blur.

After a very long moment he managed to crack his eyes open. Ahead of him he saw nothing but shadows. He turned his head left then and was met with the hazy outline of a very stern face. A woman's face.

"The good doctor..." were the first words out of his mouth. The corners of his mouth turned up a bit. He was surprised to find that he was quite unconcerned with that. In fact he wanted to keep smiling at that crazy doctor who said all those outrageous things...

"Do you remember your name?" Amy's very professional voice pierced through his reverie.

"Not supposed to..." he croaked.

"What's your name?" she insisted.

"Ben..."

"Do you feel cold, Ben?"

"Yeah... throw a blanket over me, will you?"

Amy didn't respond. The deep line between her brows became even deeper. She put her hand on his chest.

"Can you feel my hand?"

"What han...no, why?" he slurred.

"Nothing" she said. He knew it was far from nothing but he just didn't care at this moment.

"I need you to try and move your left hand fingers from me please."

He tried to concentrate at that part of his body, but it was as if it had become an abstract concept for him. The nerves wouldn't work.

"Try again" she urged a little more strongly.

He clenched his jaw with the effort but to no avail.

"It won't mo.." he had began saying when her hand shoot out and grabbed his. _That_ he felt. It was warm and tiny but it gripped his with so much force it was like he was shaking hands with a pair of tallons.

He looked at her, wide-eyed with curiocity and gratitude. "Who are you?" he asked.

Amy frowned again. "My name is Amy, I'm a doctor. We met..."

"No, I mean, _who are you?_ What the hell are you doing here? Where is your family?" he asked, still slurring his words.

"Where is _your_ family?" she asked back.

"I don't have a family."

"Are you an orphan?" she asked. He shut his eyes and turned his face away from her.

"I'm a murderer."

A deafening silence followed his words. He looked at her and she was positively petrified. _The good doctor,_ he moaned in his head, _the good doctor who saves lives, who saved my life, who doesn't know what it's like to end one..._

Amy stood. Her heavy shadow, cast by the lonely lantern at the wall, fell on him and concealed his face. And in that darkness he started weeping like he never had before. He could not stop the thoughts from burning every corner of his mind now. What he had done weighed heavily on his heart, so much so that he could barely breathe. Amy's face was inexpressive like a stone statue now. All the blood, what was left of it, had ran from it. She seemed neither surprised nor moved by his weeping. He thought then that whatever his master had promised him was false. He felt even weaker now than he had on that bridge, and wished so badly that the stony, uncaring face would mellow and look at him like it had before, when he was in pain and she held his hand.

"Whom did you murder?" she asked.

He looked up at her through tears. His voice wouldn't come as his mouth was trembling and shaking like his entire body did. The cold had seeped even deeper in his flesh now. _I can't tell her... I can't tell anyone..._

Amy's lips pressed into a thin line and she irritably grabbed more of her fur blankets and threw them over him. She then turned her head away from him and stood there taking long, deep breaths, trying to prevail against some instinct inside her.

"Whom did you murder?" she asked once more, but something about her had changed. Her entire posture was less deprecatory now. Ren considered her carefully. He was feeling an overwhelming impulse to confess, and her heart-warming eyes made it impossible to resist. Like a dying gasp for breath, the words slipped from his lips:

"My father."

* * *

Author's Note: Guys, I'm sorry this took two weeks again. My schedule is crazy and everything seems to happen on the weekend which is the only time I get to write. Hope you enjoy! The story is going to take a very different turn from now on.

A huge thank you again to my editor **Hamliet** , who goes over each chapter with me every time. Can't do this without you!


	8. Hope

Her eyes opened widely with shock. Her face had turned green.

 _I disgust her…_ he thought and his heart convulsed and more tears flooded his eyes. His tears wounded his pride, betrayed his beliefs but still he couldn't stop. Not when the feel of his father's hand still burned on his cheek and this weird doctor loathed him so much. _Why did I tell her? What possessed me to do something like this?_

Amy had covered her dropped jaw with her hand. Her breath had turned shallow and rapid. _She surely is going to kill me now,_ he thought. He wiped his eyes dry and tried his mightiest to sound calm.

"If you let me die you are going to regret it. The First Order will not let it pass…" he begun but she issued a loud snort of derision that silenced him

"The First Order won't bat their eyelashes if you're dead. They'll be looking for a replacement while your corpse is still warm."

"There is nobody like me left!" he retorted.

"Huh! You and I both know that is not true."

Ren was startled. _How can she know about Rey?_ he wondered.

"There is no one. If you don't cure me the First Order will have your head." he insisted.

"There is Luke Skywalker."

For a moment Ren said nothing.

"How do you know about Luke Skywalker?" he demanded.

"I know because _unlike you_ I wasn't born yesterday."

"I might have known you're as obsolete as your medical care." he spat.

Amy brought her index finger to her mouth and started tracing circles on her bottom lip. She was calm now, lost in thought, as she looked at him. The deep line between her brows appeared again.

"You never did tell me about your family." she said with a soft voice.

"I'm not telling you anything. Keep me alive or you die." he snarled.

Amy let out a carefree snort. "You're in no position to hand out ultimatums" she said, "and you haven't told me about the rest of your family…your mother?"

He clenched his jaw and instinctively tried ball his stiff fingers into fists.

"I have no family." he heaved.

"Now, _that_ is not true, is it? You have - _had -_ a father, you must certainly have a mother too. Where is she? Is she a First Order operative like yourself?"

That last part made Ren explode with anger.

"WHAT DO YOU CARE WHO MY MOTHER IS? I TOLD YOU I HAVE NO FAMILY! DO YOUR DAMN JOB!"

Yelling made his coarse throat so sore he couldn't breath. He started coughing loudly and his face turned red.

Quite unconcerned with his yelling, Amy took another strip of cloth and cleaned the spit from his lips. "So there _is_ a mother." she said.

Ren fell silent. _Do you have any idea how pathetic you are right now?_ he asked himself. But what good would come from threatening her further? _She obviously isn't frightened._

"I want to sleep." he whispered.

Amy went over to him. He followed her with his eyes. Her small, deft hands grabbed the edge of the furs, pulled them up and tucked the corners around his shoulders. He was so snug it was uncomfortable.

"Do I have to be swaddled like this?" he asked in exasperation.

A sweet smile brightened her face. "No." she said but she still didn't pull the fur blankets down.

"Get some rest. I'm not going to kill you in your sleep." she added and gently pushed his sweaty locks away from his face. He force himself to ignore the gesture.

"Yeah, like if you were going to you'd give me a fair warning."

"If I was going to kill you, I _hope_ I'd do it looking you in the eye, not in your sleep like a coward." she said tersely. "And I took an oath to do no harm."

He couldn't believe her no matter how much he wanted to. He'd foolishly believed the best about the girl and that traitor and he'd paid for it dearly. Now he had a scar on his face to remind him never to trust again. This doctor though… if she were lying then she were the best liar he'd ever met. _If only I could read her mind… if only I could compel her… I wouldn't need to kill her then… I could make her forget what I said… I could let her live…_

He drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The boy's sleeping form held her eyes captive. She sat on her trunk, resting her exhausted body against the hard wall of the cave and let out one heavy sigh after the other. She wanted to scream, to tear her things apart, to leave and never come back. _If only he knew…_ she thought.

She felt so much pity for him. He was almost as miserable a creature as she was. Snoke had been more successful than she could have imagined with this one. _He killed his own father…_ She still couldn't wrap her head around it. He was almost lost. _But he is still a young._ _And he doesn't realize what a blessing that is. If only he saw that there's still hope… that things could change…_ And then a dark thought assaulted her mind. _What right do either of you have to hope?_

Her chest shuddered and she started weeping silently.

After a long time, she didn't know how long, she pulled herself together and fished out from the trunk the pouch of coffee beans and the single cup she'd brought with her. She spilled some on the lid of the trunk and ground them with a rock. It'd been years since the last time she'd had coffee, although she used to be a heavy drinker. _At least it'll have more of a kick this way,_ she thought.

When it was done, the bitter taste of it made her wince. Years ago, when she had a life, she used to drink it with way too much sugar and milk. She smiled a sad smile as she remembered. It was a never ending source of entertainment to her colleagues who wouldn't stop nagging her about the damage she was doing to her health. She cared even less now than she did back then. And now she had a reason to stay awake again.

"Live dangerously." she said and raised her cup to an invisible audience. With one long gulp she swallowed it dry.

"Yawza!"

A small annoyed moan came from the boy. She chuckled quietly and went to sit on the floor next to him. Maybe for _him_ there was some hope…. _he needs to go back to that mother of his, whoever she is. I must convince him even if it's the last thing I do before he kills me._

* * *

Author's Note: Hey guys! Here's another chapter, I hope you enjoy! Trouble at school is almost over so I expect updates are going to be on schedule from now on. :D


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